Category: History

Melonpan

Melonpan pan is one of my favorite Japanese sweets. Melopan are sweet bread with the shape of half melon, the texture inside is like bread and on the surface it is crispy.

Melon Pan

Originally melopan did not have melon flavor, the name came just from the shape and the wrinkled surface that reminds that of a melon. But the concept evolved and now many melonpan have melon flavor. It sounds like a bad combination, but for me the more it tastes like melon the more I like it! If you come for travel to Japan try it, you can find it almost in any convenience store or bakery. It can also be found in some places in China or Corea. As an alternative, you could also give it a try and bake melonpan at home, here there is the recipe.

Melon Pan
This was just delicious, it tasted A LOT like a melon!

Melon Pan
With chocolate.

Melon Pan

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History

Manchukuo

Manchukuo, was a puppet state controlled by Japan since 1932 until the end of the war. It was used by the last emperor of China as a refugee, this is explained very well in the movie The Last Emperor. It was also used by Japan to try to invade the rest of China.

Last weekend I found an old magazine from the times when Manchukuo was Japan and before the Second World War. The cover shows a silhouette of Manchukuo’s map and little figures of people happily working. I guess the government was promoting Manchukuo, so Japanese people would go to live there, and foreign countries and industries would invest in the area. The propaganda was pretty effective because I think almost 1 million Japanese civilian ended up living in Manchukuo before the war.

manchukuo

This other pictures is an ad inside the same magazine. They are trying to attract tourism to Japan in general. It’s interesting that the building in the picture is one of the few that was not destroyed in Tokyo during the war. Right now the building is likethis, they just have added more on the top of the original one.

manchukuo
Mitsubishi logo (On the left), did not change a lot.

History

Akechi Mitsuhide 明智光秀

I got this Akechi Mitsuhide figure. It’s a replica made from the original Akehi Mitsuhide’s armor which you can see at Tokyo’s National Museum.

Akechi Mitsuhide

Akechi Mitsuhide was a samurai who became a legend because he killed Oda Nobunaga, one of the most important daimyo (Feudal lord) from the sixteenth century. Akechi Mitsuhide was one of the favorite Oda Nobunaga retainers, he was a successful general. But their good relationship was broken when Oda Nobunaga broke a peace agreement without Akechi Mitsuhide’s permission, that caused an missunderstanding with a rival clan, and that rival clan decided to kill Akechi’s wife.

Akechi Mitsuhide decided to avenge his wife’s death killing Oda Nobunaga, he considered that his wife’s death was Oda’s fault. He didn’t kill him, but he forced him to commit suiced following the “seppuku”(Harakiri) ritual. He recovered his honor, but his glory did not last too long. 14 days later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi attacked Akechi Mitsuhide’s clan and killed him. Sometime later Toyotomi Hideyoshi managed to take control over most of Japan and he unifed Japan for the first time in many centuries. Japan has stayed together since Toyotomi unified it at the end of the 16th century.

There are 3 tombs where Akechi Mitsuhide rests. But nobody knows which one is the real one.